Yahoo Autos Motorsport A to Z
Just about every major motorsport series currently has at least one unique selling point not seen in decades or more. That’s what made Road & Track’s 2022 edition of the annual Motorsport issue (that’s lucky Vol. 13) such a fascinating challenge. And why we decided to reach out to the most influential players in the game and create, in painstaking alphabetical order, an encyclopedia of everything you need to know about the racing renaissance. We even offer some educated theories as to why this revival is happening now.
This story originally appeared in Volume 13 of Road & Track.
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Start with Formula 1, where the growth is entirely in enthusiasm. In the U.S., an explosion of the fan base is led by the smash-hit Netflix series Drive to Survive. In 2019, an average of 672,000 fans watched F1 events aired on ESPN. Pandemic-related schedule shifts and an industry-wide TV audience downturn meant that an average of just 609,000 viewers tuned in during 2020 races. In 2021, the audience expanded by 54 percent to 934,000 per race. That number is on pace to go even higher in 2022, setting up the series to eclipse an average of 1 million U.S. viewers per live race—despite being shown almost exclusively on cable and at odd hours. When F1 gets an ideal American time slot on network TV, those numbers have the potential to balloon: The inaugural Miami Grand Prix, which was broadcast live on over-the-air ABC on a Sunday afternoon, drew a shocking 2.6 million viewers in real time.
In NASCAR, the renaissance is best seen in new high-quality teams and an exciting new car, one that has leveled the field for smaller players, has made passing easier, and, in the future, will greatly lower the cost of competing for a championship. The year before the Next Gen car debuted, three new teams decided to dip into stock-car racing’s top level. Now, thanks to the new car, two of those three teams are Cup Series winners.
In sports-car racing—Le Mans, WEC, and IMSA—smart rule sets have lowered costs and made participation easier. In 2023, IMSA’s innovative LMDh formula will join Europe’s existing Le Mans Hypercars to make a two-part top class that is identical in the U.S. and Europe. That means a car will compete for overall wins at the
24 Hours of Daytona and Le Mans in the same year for the first time since the Nineties. Manufacturer interest has swelled, with the IMSA grid growing from six confirmed top-level, full-time prototype entries to 10 in 2023. In Europe, Toyota’s long run as the only major manufacturer with a top-tier sports car will come to an end by the 2023 24 Hours of Le Mans. Newcomers Porsche, Peugeot, Ferrari, Cadillac, BMW, and Acura will debut cars at Daytona or Le Mans in 2023, joining Toyota’s two entries. Both Lamborghini and Alpine will come aboard by 2024, with even more manufacturers rumored to join later.
While F1, NASCAR, and sports cars are all just now coming along to rule sets that encourage low costs for manufacturers offtrack and high-end racing on it, IndyCar has thought that way for quite a while. The car may be getting older—the chassis is on its third refresh since its 2012 debut—but the racing is spectacular. And a new hybrid powertrain for 2024 promises to make it even more exciting. Now drivers like Marcus Ericsson and Romain Grosjean are coming straight to the series from F1, while Christian Lundgaard and Callum Ilott chose to leave the F1 ladder to race in the U.S. The door between American and European open-wheel racing seems to be swinging the other way too. McLaren has contracted three drivers in the series to test its 2021 F1 car as the organization evaluates potential future drivers. Pato O’Ward, Colton Herta, and Alex Palou made their names in IndyCar; now all three may be under consideration for a future in a Formula 1 that is suddenly much more interested in what is happening in the U.S.
Stories:
Sebastian Vettel, ‘A’ is for Agitator.
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